kitty pi

bathroom trauma

Dylan made me realize that my blog wouldn't be complete without a good bathroom story. I have many but I'll devote today to the big one.

This story takes place a long, long time ago when I was a wee lass no more than 6. I had just started a new school, I didn't have any friends and I had just gotten my hair cut. It was long and beautiful in kindergarten but for some reason, still unknown to me, my mom decided that I needed to look more like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals and had my hair cut really, really short. I was a tomboy and liked to wear pants and turtlenecks to school, but still!

I remember that I was wearing a pair of plaid bell-bottoms that day. Don't laugh, it was the 70s! It was cool. Anyway, we are at recess and I must have had to pee because I ended up in the main bathroom by the playground. It was really busy at the time, tons of girls in there from 1st graders to maybe 4th graders. I was standing at the sink, I think, and a really tall girl (some 4th grade prissy girl Amazon) starts shrieking "there's a boy in the bathroom!!! there's a boy in the bathroom!!".

Oh my god! I am all freaked out thinking that this boy must be a pervert or a psycho if he intruded upon the girls bathroom at recess. Eeek! There was what seemed like a mad stampede towards the door, which I didn't join in because I was busy washing my hands. But, man, was I scared! In all the chaos, I never did see the boy in the girls bathroom.

Moments later, Mrs. Alexander, my math teacher, came in to see what all the ruckus was about. The prissy girly-girl, still hyperventilating, managed to say "th-th-th-there i-i-s a-a b-boy in h-here" and she pointed. Right at me.

I was only 6 years old, but I thought I would DIE from embarrasment. I have probably never been more mortified than at that very moment when the prissy girl pointed at me and called me a boy.

Luckily my teacher knew me (and my gender) so she handled it all sweetly and compassionately. Otherwise, I may have been attacked and maimed, or worse, by an angry mob of primary school girls!

Thankfully, no one would mistake me for a boy anymore, although I still like bell-bottoms and turtlenecks. I don't have an Alfapha hair cut either, but once in a while I get a glimpse of myself or see a picture and think "gosh, I do look like a boy".

posted by Anita at 3:38 PM